


Sucker for Pain

by Helianthus21



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Depressed Castiel (Supernatural), Gen, Hopeful Ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Season/Series 08, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-16
Updated: 2019-08-16
Packaged: 2020-09-02 05:33:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20270782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Helianthus21/pseuds/Helianthus21
Summary: After freeing Sam from his hell pain, Cas becomes addicted to taking on other people’s pain because for a little while, it overshadows his own





	Sucker for Pain

**Author's Note:**

> I've been sitting on this for a long while. Finally decided to come back to it. It's unusually heavy stuff for me, let me know if I should add any warning tags?

The distinct sound of a blade against bone rang through the air. Then: the thump of the vampire’s head hitting the floor.

That was the last one of the nest.  
  
Castiel watched Dean wipe his blade on his jacket sleeve with distaste written clearly on his face, watched how Sam kicked all the body-less heads into a pile so that he could light them on fire.

They were fine overall, he observed, just the usual injuries that came with a hunt, nothing that couldn’t await its healing.

So he turned his attention to the survivors, the humans that had been abused as prey for the vampires to feed on. They looked like death; the side of it that was merciless and brutal and excruciating. Crusted blood glued the strands of their hair together, large gashes separated the skin on various parts of their bodies and when Castiel looked more closely, beyond what was visible to the human eye, he recognized severe internal damages as well.

But the boy and the girl – siblings, Castiel noted after a brief skimming of their consciousness – were writhing on the floor, faintly crying out the pain and sorrow that was finally, finally heard.  
  
This side of death was not absolute. Where there was suffering, there was still life, and so the end of theirs could still be averted.

Castiel pressed both hands on either of their heads, brushing past the sweat-soaked hair to get to the pain underneath. His Grace found their ripped skin and fractured bones. It mended their wounds and sutured their skin and it stilled their cries.  
  
But his Grace did not stop there. It took their pain and _tugged _at it, drew it over and into him.

It hit him as a wave. The evidence of human fragility, multiplied by two. Castiel welcomed it into him, soaked himself in it, his veins burning hot with it and his eyes filling with tears.

Absently, he lifted a hand to his face, noted the way his limbs trembled even before he felt it.

He smiled. This was good. This was what it should feel like to do good. The Bad had to go somewhere after all, and it better go to a place that _knew_ the true Bad this world could offer, knew it by heart, by his own bloodstained hands. Because that was where it belonged.  
  
But this was only physical pain. It would not endure for long against the thrum of his Grace.  
  
So Castiel immersed in it as long as he could, not bothering to control the shaking of his limbs or the wetness in his eyes, and before he knew it, he found himself falling backwards.  
  
He did not like the fall.

Especially like this, when he couldn’t even see where the fall might end.  
  
For a second, the constriction in his chest was his own, and then he didn’t fall anymore. It hadn’t been a long fall after all, and Cas sighed in relief. The surface against his back was solid and warm and it held him well.  
  
“Cas”, the surface said, and it didn’t sound like a surface at all. It sounded like Dean. “You dumbass. You shouldn’t jump right into this, I said – goddammit, Cas.”

He sounded at least a bit angry, but his tone was lowered to a strangely soft growl. It was nice, his voice.

The strong hands that gripped Cas by his forearms were also quite nice. Castiel leaned his head against Dean’s chest, letting the man carry his weight, and tilted his head back to get a glimpse of Dean.  
  
Dean looked tall from this angle. Tall and strong. Almost enough to carry all of Cas.

Almost.

Castiel shouldn’t let his current weakness fool himself. No, his weight was his own to carry, and no one else’s.

“You gotta be more careful”, Dean spoke again, his eyes narrowing at the way his concern made Castiel grin lopsidedly.  
  
“They’re fine.” The answer trickled out of him as though he was underwater. He pointed a finger into the vague direction where he thought the siblings were sitting, now upright again, gasping, and holding onto one another with renewed life.

He felt his eyes falling shut.

Soon, his Grace would work on defeating the foreign matter, and in the meantime, it would put his consciousness into a sleep-like state, or as sleep-like as Castiel could get fully powered.

A small reprieve.

The fingers around his biceps tightened their grip. “That’s not what I asked,” Dean said.

But Cas couldn’t remember what he’d asked. Just concentrated on the points of contact where their skin touched, the distressed back-and-forth rub of a thumb against his arm.  
  
And waited it out.

***

Something in Castiel had lit up that night.  
  
It became a sort of beacon for him, and he longed for it, to seek out the fire that burned him, even just for a little while. He healed every little scratch and wound and made it his own, he transferred the long faded but ever-present ache of scars onto himself, and he thrived on it all.  
  
There was something poetic to it, Castiel thought. That the destruction of one was salvation for him.  
  
Soon, the opportunities that the hunts presented for him weren’t enough. So he began looking for more.  
  
He figured a hospital would do well enough to allay his hunger.  
  
This pain was different. This pain was emotional, deep spider webs that had weaved their way through the human brain to spread their darkness in the woman’s soul. It was more difficult to extract. But also more difficult to withstand, to bear, and Castiel thrummed at the anticipation of making it his own.

This pain was more all-encompassing. Physical pain was instant, sharp, yes – but this pain _lasted_ and if you stood still for too long, it would make you its slave.  
  
He reached out his hand, let his Grace flow through her body, followed all the nooks and crannies of the spider webs and, very delicately, _tugged_.  
  
It streamed into him, painfully slowly. It didn’t burn hot, like all the previous pains had. It was cold as ice, almost freezing the edges of his Grace. Everything slowed. His face felt as stone, eyelids drooping half-shut. It closed around his heart like a fist.

Castiel shivered.  
  
The trauma she must have endured, it was all gone. Castiel swallowed it all into the black hole in his stomach, in his chest, until it swallowed him whole.

It was just like back then, with Sam and his hallucinations.

He was a good vessel for the pain.

It was all he knew how to be.

***

When he came to, it was in a daze.  
  
He didn’t know where he was, didn’t know where he’d been when he lost consciousness, or the fact that he lost consciousness at all.

“Back to the land of the living?”

The voice was familiar, but unexpected in this setting. Even without being aware of his surroundings, Castiel knew that much. The last time he’d seen him, Benny couldn’t wait to be wherever Castiel wasn’t. And the feeling had been mutual.

“Ironic,” Castiel rasped out. “Of you to say that.”

The vampire snorted, and now Castiel could open his eyes wide enough to notice the strain around Benny’s jaw, the tension in the arms he had crossed over his chest. “You should thank me, ya know,” Benny claimed. “Could ‘of been any other day that I’d come collect my blood ration. Any other hospital. But no, it’s on the same day, the same hospital that you crazy bonehead decide to – what the hell’ve ya been doin’ in there anyway?”  
  
Castiel turned onto his back, stared at the ceiling. The world was grayer up there, duller and not as confusing as the swirl of contrasting emotions the vampire eradiated.

“Healing,” answered Cas finally.

“Healing,” repeated Benny, and Cas had to admit it was impressive to hear how many layers of judgment he could carry through just that one word. “I called Dean.”

Cas sat up sharply, ignoring the way the world was still spinning around him. “You didn’t.”

Benny shrugged, entirely unapologetic. There wasn’t much to betray between two beings who had never really shared any form of bond in the first place.

“When?” Inside his head, he was already calculating all the ways he could mitigate Dean’s anger, downplay the situation to something Dean would be agreeable to.

“Half an hour ago?” Benny estimated vaguely.

Cas turned his head in an exaggerated full-body eye-roll. Half an hour with Dean’s way of driving combined with his stubbornness that could easily turn the laws of time and physics on their heads… Castiel stood up carefully and searched the room for his trench coat. Spotting it on a chair next to where Benny leaned against the wall, he reached for it and draped himself in the comforting fabric.  
  
Instantly, he felt bigger, sturdier. Readier to take Dean’s repressed disappointment and Benny’s unabashed judgment. He didn’t remember having taken off his coat, so maybe Benny had, when he’d carried him into this room and deposited him on the bed to recover. Speaking of-

“Why did you do it?”  
  
Castiel had wanted to ask since Purgatory, since that Leviathan got _this_ close to ending it all for him. Since Benny had stepped in despite what Castiel presented for him.

A nuisance, an obstacle between Benny and freedom.

And yet, he had saved him.

Now Benny just shrugged again. “Do I look like a monster to ya?”

Castiel stared. He didn’t understand the way Benny talked. It was like a whole different language when Castiel knew every language of the world by heart. It was even more cryptic to him than Dean’s abundant references to popular culture. Dean and Benny had shared that language, leaving Castiel to observe them through a barrier of looking-glass. Close, but never enough so.

“Look, man,” Benny said. “I just thought Dean’d like to know why you passed out on a hospital floor, creeping over some girl in the psych ward. Least I could do. No matter how low a’ me you think.”

“I don’t hate you,” Castiel said, almost as if pondering to himself. “I owe you. You kept Dean safe when I –,“ His breathing stopped short. After all this time the guilt still felt like a punch to the gut. “You kept Dean safe,” He continued. “And I trust you to do it again. So this responsibility you feel for him – I’m glad for it. But dragging Dean into my business is not the way to care for his well-being.”

At that, strangely, Benny snorted. “Have you even _been_ there, in Purgatory? You don’t _drag_ Dean Winchester into The Angel’s business, you just get out of the way when he slays his way over to 'im.” He spread his arms in a grand gesture. “This is me, gettin’ outta the way.”

Castiel’s jaw worked against the words that dreaded to spill out of his mouth. That what Benny explained was exactly why Castiel went to that hospital, away from Sam and Dean’s watchful eyes. How could he have thought _the vampire _of all people would drag him off the ground.

Well.

_Again_.

“I’m watching out for Dean,” Benny added, softer this time, in a way Cas had never heard it directed at him, not from the vampire. “Means I also have to watch out for _you_. Learned that way back when.”

Castiel closed his eyes, suddenly missing the solidity of the mattress against his back. He sacked into the chair which had held his coat earlier, not bothering to keep in a deep sigh.

“Ya know, all this talk about Dean – fascinating, don’t get me wrong, but the real question is, why did healing this one girl wear ya down so much, huh.” He shaped the question like a fact, so Castiel didn’t deem it necessary to reply.

Leaning down so their eyes were on the same level, Benny said, “I know a junkie when I see one, brother. Don’t matter your poison… Drugs, blood, something else – that’s just a technicality.”

Feeling suddenly weary, worse than when he first woke up in the hospital bed, Cas returned his gaze. “You’re so very aware aren’t you.”

“Got a few missing pieces,” Benny admitted. “Why you came to a hospital for instance. And what the fuck you been doin’ to that girl-”  
  
“I’ve _healed_ her. I told you.” Benny made it sound like he was being indecent, and the mere thought appalled Cas.

“Yeah, sure.” Benny raised an eyebrow, indicating that he’d been teasing. “'Seen what you can do, remember? Seemed much more steadfast in good ol’ Purgatory is all I’m saying.” He shrugged. “Look you don’t have to tell me. The babysitting’s what I called the chief for.”  
  
For some reason, this choice of wording grated on Cas’ nerves. “I don’t need anyone 'babysitting’ me. There’s no harm done with what I do. On the contrary, it’s _helping people_. I don’t understand why you’re taking such an interest.”

“Ya don’t have to bullshit me, brother,” Another prolongated moment passed in which Benny scrutinized Cas. His eyes had lost their challenging glint they usually had when directed at Castiel, which sparked the thought in Castiel that maybe he had to rethink the entire basis on which their relationship was grounded.

Then Benny blinked and the expression was replaced by a much more neutral one, and he said, “But you can talk all that out with Dean now, huh.” A grin appeared on the vampire’s face that Castiel very much wanted to punch off of him. “Hola, brother.”

“Hey, Benny,” Dean said, after he’d closed the door behind him.

Cas had been so distracted by their conversation, by the numbness that had settled around him that he hadn’t even noticed the hunter’s approach. Dean nodded towards him, lips pressed together tightly. “Cas.”

What left Cas’ mouth was more of a croak than any sort of decent greeting.  
  
“Benny?” Dean said, and again some secret communication seemed to go down between them because Benny took that as his cue to leave.

“On my way out.” Benny saluted to Dean and turned to go, but Dean lay a hand on his shoulder to hold him there another moment, leaning close.  
  
“Thanks, man. I owe you a drink sometime. Or several.” The hand on his shoulder squeezed once. “I mean it.”  
  
With a nod of his head, Benny dismissed his thanks, but the warm smile on his face betrayed his own gratitude. “I’ll take you up on that, brother.”

And then Benny slipped out into the hallway. The thump the door made when it slammed shut sounded judgmental in itself, which was impossible – doors had no capacity for the forming of their own opinion – and Cas almost flinched at its finality.  
  
Dean waited until Benny’s footsteps faded away, and only then did he turn around. “Cas-”  
  
“I was only healing a young woman.”

“Yeah, I figured that much,” Dean said, and Cas wondered what exactly Benny had told him.

“Cas, you’re not responsible for every single hurt person on this goddamn planet, okay? And I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but healing one person – one single person – never got you down that much. Something’s off. So either you’re telling me or I’ll lock you into your room in the Bunker, pour holy water on the doorway and light it on fire until I’ve knocked some sense into you.”

Cas’ shoulders slumped. “That sounds excessive, you…” he sighed. “You don’t need to do that.”  
  
“Great,” Dean said, sitting down on an available chair next to Cas’ and folding his hands in his lap. “So? I’m listening.”  
  
Cas sighed deeply. He was thankful for the position of their chairs. That way, he didn’t have to look Dean in the eyes when he told his story.

“I’m… practicing an exchange of energy,” he began. “When I heal, I channel my grace into the wounded body, and instead of laying waste of the broken parts, I… I channel them over to mine.”

“_Cas-_“

“It’s not as bad as it sounds,” Cas tried to placate.

“It makes you collapse from exhaustion, Cas, how is that not bad?” Dean sounded angry now, and definitely not placated at all. “You… you’re giving them health and in exchange, they give you whatever was fucked up with theirs? That’s a pretty shitty deal, Cas.”

“The pain has to go somewhere, right?”

Dean looked at him. “Where did it go all the times before now, then?” he asked. “Don’t tell me you always had to take on their – _our_ shit when we were hurt?” And now Dean sounded almost panicked which just didn’t fly. Anger at him, Cas could deal with but if it went so far that Dean blamed _himself_… He couldn’t have that.

So he decided to come clean. “No, of course not.” He tilted his head back to stare at that boring spot on the ceiling again. “A… transferral is not necessary, the pain can be extinguished out of existence,” he said, voice almost a whisper. “It just makes me feel better.”

If he turned his head to the side, he’d see Dean’s eyes flit from one side to the other, unseeing, as he tried to piece together various shreds of information.

So he didn’t. Instead, he kept his gaze on the ceiling, which was much easier to look at. The ceiling didn’t have Dean’s expressive, vulnerable, _beautiful_ green eyes. The ceiling was just gray.

“It makes you feel better, how?”

Cas licked his dry lips, a sign of nervousness he must have adopted somewhere along the way between falling, and flying, and falling again. “It overshadows my own.”

“Your own wha-,” Dean interrupted himself with a gasp that sounded punched out of him. “Your own pain?”

Cas nodded meekly.

“Dammit, Cas.” And this time, Dean sounded neither angry nor panicked. It was a different nuance of a bone-deep fear that Cas would have rather not poked at again.

Before he knew it, Cas was engulfed in a warm, crushing hug. Dean’s body was twisted awkwardly in order to reach him, and despite the low number of hugs Cas had enjoyed in his life, it was not the most comfortable one he had ever engaged in.

Still, it was nice. Cas closed his eyes and absorbed Dean’s warmth into himself, breathed in the familiar scent of leather and motor oil and Dean. Absently, he wondered if this may be a better way to deal. It felt nice, anyway. And the world seemed just a fraction more bearable.

“We’re gonna figure it out, okay?” Dean murmured into his neck, and that felt nice too.

So Cas nodded, the motion causing Dean’s hair to tickle his cheek.

Dean pulled away, but let a hand rest around Cas’ shoulder, drawing Cas a little closer to his side, as much as the position of their chairs let them. “Okay, here’s what we’re gonna do. We’re gonna get you to Baby and we’re gonna talk about this on the way back home, how 'bout that?”  
  
Driving for hours and opening himself up to another person, Cas pondered. Even if that other person was Dean?  
  
“Those are two things I’d rather not do,” admitted Castiel but Dean showed no mercy.  
  
“Yeah, well, suck it up, big boy. That’s the point. You’re gonna have to win your way back into my good graces, for almost giving me a heart-attack like that.” He punctuated his words with a gentle clap on Cas’ shoulders, watering down his words. Dean was just looking out for him, Cas knew. He should meet him halfway in this. He owed him that much.

When he made to stand up, Dean offered him a hand.

This time, Cas took it.

And let himself be pulled up.

**Author's Note:**

> this may not be a happy ending in the ideal sense of the word, but i think they're getting there:')


End file.
